If the streets had been dry, the tires of her vespa would have screeched as Lady Penelope took the corner at speed. Instead, slick with the rain that had started at the worst possible time, they skidded and slipped and sent a thin sheet of water flaring from beneath the wheels. Gordon's arm around her waist is rock steady, but he's twisted in the seat behind her, intent on the man with the machine gun, riding on the back of the scooter chasing theirs. So far there've been a few warning bursts, but nothing anywhere near hitting them. Between the thrum of her scooter's small engine, the rhythm of the rain on the old cobbled streets, and the throbbing roar of the water, rising in the canals beside them, Lady Penelope can barely think straight.
It hasn't been a good day. Or-it had, up until the mortally dangerous scooter chase, through the dark, rainy streets of Venice.
She'd invited Gordon partly because it was Venice, beautiful, romantic Venice, colloquially the Bride of the Sea. This was a sneaky, privately flirtatious joke on her part, and it was absolutely lost on anyone else. She'd invited Gordon mostly because Parker had come down with an acute case of laryngitis, heaped on top of a bad chest cold. The Grey Ninja was spry, healthy for his age, and impressively agile. Even for all this, he was still getting on in years, and Lady Penelope sometimes wondered if his perpetualand stubborn involvement in her career of international espionage was asking too much of her dear old friend. She certainly wasn't about to risk his health, and so he was at home, tucked in bed, with strict instructions not to overdo it. Gordon Tracy was only too happy to volunteer his time.
It was supposed to have been a fairly simple assignment, a covert exchange of intelligence relating to the activities of the mafia within the city. Lady Penelope had arranged to meet her contact for a late dinner in a restaurant off of the Piazzo San Marco, and if it just so happened to serve the best squid ink risotto in the city, then what of it? Gordon had been nervous, adorably so and had merely told the waiter, in his terribly accented and halting Italian, that he'd have what she was having. Lady Penelope had smiled into her menu and gently teased at his ankle with the tip of her shoe. He'd blushed bright pink and stammered his way through the first course after that affectionate gesture. Of course, they were only posing as a vacationing couple, but it was fun to pretend. And if Lady Penelope laid it on uncharacteristically thick, it wasn't like Gordon Tracy was about to complain about having one of the loveliest women he knew hanging onto his arm.
Then the mafia had ruined everything.
A man in a dark suit had entered the restaurant and, failing to recognize him, Lady Penelope had gone quite pale. There was a distinct air of menace about him, and he carried the dossier she had been expecting to see an old friend and associate with. She was anxious to know what had befallen her contact, but there were more pressing matters to be dealt with. The man with the dossier had been slowly scanning the room. His dark hair was damp, the light fabric of his suit jacket spattered with rain. Overhead the lights flickered softly and there was a low rumble of distant thunder, sinister and foreboding.
Penelope's hand had reached across the table and her fingers closed on Gordon's wrist with a light but urgent pressure. "Darling. I can't recall if we parked the vespa somewhere dry. Would you be an angel and come with me to check?"
Gordon had already put his fork down at the touch of her hand, and the prearranged codeword (darling) had put him on high alert. HIs brown eyes had locked with hers and for a fraction of a moment she'd been distracted by the set of his jaw, the way he looked so handsome in the restaurant's low candelight, his face shadowed as he got to his feet and offered her his arm.
Then they'd been out the back door and away, Penelope had clambered onto her scooter with Gordon snugly behind her, and fled into the freshly falling darkness, under the cover of rain on the venetian streets. Then the pursuit. And then the staccato burst of machine gun fire, and the growing realization that the mission was as good as failed, and that now it was just a question of getting away.
"The hotel?" Gordon shouted over her shoulder as she kicked the scooter into a higher gear, mindful of just how treacherous the narrow streets were, the cobbled surfaces uneven and slick, and her sense of balance thrown off by the addition of a passenger.
"Too risky!" Lady Penelope shouted back and winced at the roll of thunder overhead. It's more than she can explain during a high speed vespa chase, but they shouldn't have been found at the restaurant. It should have been a lovely, peaceful meal, with pleasant company and good food, sweet italian wine and a covert exchange of secret financial documents to round things out before dessert. Things have gone badly wrong and she isn't sure how or why, but it's beside the point. They need to get clear of their pursurers and out of the city-out of the country if they can manage it.
When she loses control of the scooter, it's another thing she can't explain. Whether it's the rain or the darkness or the imbalance of weight, or some other mistake of her own. She hears the metallic ping of bullets off the cowl of her back wheel, she hears Gordon shout, and she feels his arm loosen around her waist, then shoot forward to grab the handlebars and swing them sharply sideways, just as the wheels start to slide out of her control. Lady Penelope had been making for the inner city, better cover, more people, a better chance of finding someone who'll stop their pursuers, but the route has taken them along a broad thoroughfare, running alongside an unprotected stretch of canal. The water is surging in the wind and the storm, dark, inky black. Seconds later it's freezing cold and roaring silence, and over her head.
The scooter had kept purchase for only a few moments on low stones leading off the edge of the canal, but it rapidly falls away beneath her, wheels caught, embedded in sediment, and Lady Penelope is pitched head first into the water. It's late October, and the rain had already soaked her jacket and begun to chill her skin, but the canal is so cold that the shock forces air from her lungs, bubbling to the surface and away from her. And then it's blind, directionless panic, the pull of a current she wasn't expecting, lightning flashing somewhere above her. One of her feet catches in oozing, sticky mud, one of her hands stretches upward and for a moment cool wind brushes her fingers. Lady Penelope never panics. It's a new and horrible sensation.
She doesn't even remember about Gordon until a hand catches her wrist, and he's the only source of warmth left in the world. And then his arm circles beneath her, and she feels herself turn in the water-upward, as her back presses against his chest. When her face breaks the surface she's coughing and gasping and crying and water is plugging her ears and her nose and the taste of it is foul and frightening. But he's still behind her, and his arms are strong and powerful, looped beneath hers.
Some rational spark remaining in her brain seems to know to try to be still, though she's choking for breath and her urge is to fight the surface. That spark of rationality flares and catches, calms her just slightly. This is what he does, this is his job. He'd been out of his element all evening and she'd been privately enjoying it, seeing him off-balance in her world of international glamour and class. But as soon as they hit the water and someone needed saving, there was no one else in the world she could have wished for.
The current in the canals is stronger with the inflow of water from the storm overhead. Everything is dark and cold and wet and Lady Penelope isn't sure she's ever been more frightened in her entire life. There are people shouting distantly in Italian, and she can feel herself moving through the water. She can feel the pull against her legs, the tug of the persistent current. Gordon's still propelling them backward, towards the canal wall, strong and competent and oh, she's so glad he's here.
The world above the water is hazy blue instead of inky black, and there are stabbing points of bright electric light casting a greasy sheen on the water. Lady Penelope's shoulder hits the edge of the canal wall, and Gordon pulls her close. For only a moment she hears him breathing-panting, practically, heavy and laboured against her cheek. Before she can twist in the water to face him, an impossibly strong arm has her by the back of her tasteful, Italian dress, boosting her upward and out of the water, supporting her just until she gains purchase on the cobbled street above.
With her knees beneath her, and her hands flat on the gritty pavement, a hiccuping cough of water bursts from her lips and it's a few more moments before she can turn back to the canal edge. It's only a foot or so down to the surface of the water, but all she can see in the darkness is a hand scrabbling briefly at the edge of the bricks. Then an elbow, and then Gordon's face. There's an angry red graze above his eye, and he has to pause at the edge to catch his breath, but he's almost clear of the water. There's more shouting, more Italian, and a pounding of footsteps through the streets behind her.
Then, hollow and unearthly, another roar of water. Louder than anything Penelope's heard yet tonight.
There's a gate built into the wall of the canal. Heavy and immovable most of the time, but when the canal water reaches a certain threshold, it opens to drain away and prevent the water from overflowing the banks. It opens with a deafening roar of suction and Gordon's hand is briefly white knuckled at the edge and then he's yanked bodily from the wall and under. Again. It slams shut with a horrible finality, and then that is the loudest sound Lady Penelope has heard yet tonight. It rings in her head, her heart, her hands against the cold stones beneath her.
The Italian voices resolve themselves into actual Italians, and there are hands reaching for her from every corner, and she can't translate quickly enough in her head to figure out what's going on. "Gordon," she manages, dully and somewhat stupidly, as she reaches for his hand again. But there's only the bare brick of the canal wall, and eddies of suction teasing the upper lip of the drainage tunnel.